Paper Monitor
13:29 UK time, Thursday, 27 August 2009
Thanks for your help yesterday, Monitorites, and apologies for the late-running of today's service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
The diary room will close. The chickens (are there still chickens?) will be set free. Davina McCall will be running off copies of her CV, as will that Geordie voiceover bloke. And the tabloid picture editors are holding a wake for the steady stream of "BB Babes" that drip from the faucet of fleeting fame.
So how do the papers mark the passing of Big Brother, which over the years has generated many many many column inches for broadsheet and tabloid alike?
In the Daily Telegraph, there is a think-piece from on the since those heady days of "Nasty Nick" writing names on bits of paper. "[It] has had to mutate to survive... Britons' devotion to these newer hits [Strictly, X Factor] reflects some of Big Brother's original strengths - the sense of an audience coming together for an event, and a national preoccupation with distracting trivia."
Oooo! That's right, Strictly's starting again soon. Goody!
It goes on: "Viewers root for their favourites to do well, rather than for unpopular contestants to do badly... No longer is fame divorced from merit, as it was in those grim years when Goody could command the cover of Heat magazine by changing the colour of her lipstick."
Our lady of reality television, may she rest in peace...
The Sun - which has all but ceased covering Big Brother - is rather more interested in Kerry Katona and Katie Price, who it reverts to calling "Jordan". Oh, and a tree with a bottom-shape in its trunk. Perhaps it's an ash?
But wait, here's something on page 14. "DAY 768 IN THE HOUSE. Big Brother... you have been evicted."
See what they did there? The Telegraph did almost the same thing, with "Big Brother gets its eviction notice".
Sun TV critic Ally Ross reckons that what really did for the show was the success of Celebrity Big Brother - in particular, CBB 2006, in which George Galloway pretended to be a puss-puss.
"A bunch of nonentities arguing about a shopping list was never going to be the same after we'd seen a sitting MP impersonate a cat," says Ross, reminding Paper Monitor that there is no more chilling phrase in the English language than "Shall I... be the cat?"
"Thank God it's the end" says the Daily Mail, predictably. Equally predictably, the Daily Star is in mourning for the goose that laid the golden egg, marking its passing with a double page spread of the topless lovelies who have exited the house to pose nearly naked for the red-tops in the past.
And finally, an observation that adds to the body of evidence that Twitter is for old people (wrinklies over the age 30, that is).
Cheeky upstart Web Monitor is, for some reason, wanting a screen grab of micro-blogging site in action.
"How do you log in?"
"Here's how," says Paper Monitor.
"If I write something here, will it just publish all by itself?"
"Only if you click that button there."
"I'm typing something in, but it's not showing up. Why?"
"Because that's your screen grab in Photoshop..."
The 
